Non-fiction works cleanup

There was some mod discussion about the Blackfish moments cut decline and the non-fiction guidance, and I've now followed up on that to try to clarify - starting with Nightmare Fuel.

• We now have a clear note about Nightmare Fuel's NRLEP status and how that applies to non-fiction works, which has been added to the "Notes to editors" section in the trope page intro folder. This was discussed on the Nightmare Fuel Cleanup and Trope Description Improvement Drive threads.
• NightmareFuel.Blackfish is still there, but I've cut it back significantly to remove examples that break that NRLEP guidance. There is now a comment on the page reiterating the rules and referring back to this thread.

Unusually for a documentary, that leaves some Nightmare Fuel examples that seem to be valid - for the poster, for the credit sequence, and for a particularly haunting Armor-Piercing Question (a hypothetical).

If anyone wants to challenge them, I've got no strong views on the matter, but they looked ok to me, as they seemed to follow the spirit of the rules.

The note on the trope page also gives us a guideline to use for other works and associated cut requests.

(Mod hat off, as the original discussion was a mod thing, but everything after was done via usual wiki channels, not as a mod ruling)

Does that sound about right?

Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 17th 2023 at 1:02:10 PM

Sounds fine to me.

Sounds good to me.

Characters.Top Gear UK looks like it's troping real people (presenters) as fictional characters.

Tempted to cut, with the following exeptions / oddities:

• The Stig, in his various incarnations, is a larger-than-life character with a bit if a myth, and can presumably stay.

• Oliver is a car. A normal car with no personality. Cut?

• Top Gear Dog is a real dog, and purely ZCE tropes. Cut?

• Top Gear Stuntman Is a nameless stuntman with ZCE tropes. Cut?

So, Jimmy Savile: A British Horror Story has just undergone heavy revisions because a lot of the tropes were about his real life rather than through the lens of the documentary. Could some of them be readded if it was clear they're used in the documentary?

For instance, Bittersweet Ending was removed but I think I have a way for it to apply:

• Bittersweet Ending: The documentary ends on this note. Roger Ordish and Alison Bellamy feel a sense of betrayal that someone who they considered a close friend was a monster, as do those who helped Savile in his charity work. Andrew Neil expresses regret that journalists as a profession failed the country because they didn't expose him sooner. However, Meirion Jones is relieved that he managed to get the truth out there, and Sam Brown, one of Savile's many victims, is at peace now that she's finally been heard.

Edited by LtFedora on Nov 28th 2023 at 12:46:15 PM

The page for 19 Kids and Counting tropes the Duggar family and their opinions. Not only that but their is a character sheet that describes the Duggars with NRLEP tropes. I don't think the show is tropable, not only because it is a reality show, but because the Duggars and their beliefs are highly controversial so troping the show neutrally probably isn't feasible.

Edited by TheLivingDrawing on Dec 14th 2023 at 2:30:55 PM

(x4) Aye to all of your Top Gear suggestions. The Stig and his cousins are essentially all that can stay on the page.

Oh Shiitake Mushrooms was brought up in the Character page cleanup thread and to me as an outsider it appears like it's troping real people?

Looking at the channel I guess the obviously exaggerated "temper tantrum" skits could be troped, but right now the page is full of ZCE and weird troping of the people, which I feel definitely isn't helped by the people involved being disabled — like, should we really be listing a real-life disabled man as an example of Elmuh Fudd Syndwome?

I've briefly considered making pages for popular science books because I've read a few this year, but I think it'd be a challenge to find tropable content in them. Some have narrative elements — e.g.: An Immense World starts with a "gymnasium full of animals" scenario, most chapters of Steve Brusatte's paleontology books begin with stories about how specific fossils might've come to be — but I'm not sure if there's enough to get at least 8 tropes out of them.

Edited by NitroIndigo on Dec 15th 2023 at 9:36:37 AM

I don't think popular science books have enough of a fictional element to be tropable.

A Child Called "It" probably needs a serious look for ROCEJ reasons: it's an autobiography about severe child abuse suffered by the author as a kid (which has been accused of being made up), and is full of troping of allegedly real-life actions and people, but my main issue that it has a WMG page that discusses whether the book is true or not. Surely that can be cutlisted with no loss?

I've cutlisted it as Real Life Troping and using media coverage outside the work as a source.

I'll leave it for another mod to approve or reject the cut.

Thank you very much.

If anyone's got time and energy to look at Welcome to Wrexham, we seem to have a lot of real life troping creeping in there.

There are plenty of staged aspects and creative elements we can trope, but it's also treating sports as if they're scripted and real people as if they're characters.

Edited by Mrph1 on May 4th 2024 at 12:46:59 PM

Do the various artists who perform in Eurovision have their own pages?

Some will, many won't.

It tends to attract one hit wonders and is generally seen as a risky proposition for any established, credible artist.

My concern with Eurovision is that it's almost exclusively RL troping. As a Music article it would struggle to support any trope content that is independent from the music that it hosts. The solution to "we don't have a page for this artist" is not to lump the artist with the shows/contests that they appear in.

If there is sufficient creative content inherent to the contest itself, it can remain as a media article in a manner similar to a Game Show or Reality Show, but needs to have all the RL stuff stripped out. If not, it can be migrated to Media Notes or Useful Notes where it would join other competitive events like sports.

Edited by Fighteer on May 13th 2024 at 12:26:41 PM

im fine with keeping tropes strictly for performances and song content since im not sure if the alternative of troping a bunch of one-hit wonders or bands that formed only for Eurovision would be feasible; we do have precedent for some bands warranting their own pages, like the Epic Sax Guy band off the top of my head iirc.

Eurovision also includes a lot of flashy staging for live performances - there will be things we can trope there. It just needs a lot of pruning.

For what it's worth, there's a Useful Notes page listing the pages for musicians that have entered/performed as interval acts/hosted the contest. It's linked in the intro description but kind of lost at the bottom. Notable Eurovision Song Contest Acts

I'd also support keeping the pages but removing anything political/personal. There's been some entries I've considered cutting for those reasons but wasn't sure if I should. As Mrph1 pointed out, there's a lot of tropes related to the staging and performances that would be lost if all entries were cut.

Well then, let's get to work. Slash and burn the bad examples and we'll see if what's left is worth keeping.

Did a rough pass cutting some of the more contentious personal tropes. I left things like the main Fanservice and Stripperiffic tropes as they didn't refer to anything specific, and it's an unavoidable fact that costumes can get pretty skimpy. I also cut a few politicaly-charged ones that haven't sat well with me for a while (and there was a Runner Up entry for this year's that I do think is too early to call 48 hours after the final). There's still a few lengthy politics-based entries that I didn't touch (mostly from keeping an eye on the edit timer) and probably personal ones that I missed or second-guessed on.

Edited by NB2000 on May 13th 2024 at 7:41:31 PM

Costume and appearance tropes applied to real people should always be removed, even if they're "part of the show". The performers aren't actors playing parts.

I brought up 19 Kids and Counting here but got no responses. The page not only tropes the real people (the show itself probably isn't tropable) but has a character page negatively troping real people. What should we do about the show? https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=16751522130A16039600&page=2#comment-32